Friday, May 30, 2014

Would my next print job on an
AirPrint MFP go best with a Cabernet or Merlot?

Is an Android-enabled printer
available somewhere near my bus route?

Based on recent research, these could be the kinds of
questions smartphone users are asking themselves, at least if we can put a few
data points together. Once again, this month I take
on a happy confluence of several of my favorite topics from somewhat far-flung
tributaries of thought. One of those interests is the general field of
marketing segmentation and advertising, another is my fascination with the
world of mobile devices and the state of mobile printing, and the third relates
to the overall quantification of things and how important it is to track the
numbers, especially over time.

Earlier this month, I noticed several stories that
referred to a study on the contrasting characteristics between users of Apple
iPhones (which all use iOS) and Google/Android-based smartphones. As Ina
Fried’s Re/code story (“Android
Users Are More Likely to Take the Bus, While the Frequent Fliers Choose iPhones”) summarizes, Battery
Ventures did research on user activities and characteristics that are most (and
least) correlated with owning and using the two dominant smartphone operating
systems of the day. As Fried’s report on the research indicates, the motivation
for the study is market segmentation, leading to better deployment (i.e., ROI) of
mobile ad dollars - in other words, what are the basic buying interests and
characteristics that separate the users of each platform? And given that
information, where should potential advertisers place should ads for their products
and services with the goal of reaching the most likely buyers?

As a part-time professor of marketing, I am
fascinated by segmentation, and in fact subscribe to the idea that market
segmentation is one of the most critical ideas in the whole discipline of
marketing. Segmentation is on my short list of topics, in fact, that I stress
to my MBA marketing students, threatening to not let them out the door of my
classroom until they can recite a few segmentation basics. For example, whenever
someone hears “no one will buy this” or “everyone is going to love that,” I
contend that they need to immediately reject those statements, knowing that
segmentation precludes such universal judgments.

So when Battery Ventures’ research of
smartphones users finds iPhone users are more likely to be wine drinkers, and
Nexus users are more likely to be beer drinkers, this is a useful metric, but
like other points about segmentation, it is neither a value judgment nor a
statement of causation (despite the correlation). I refer readers to the Re/code and Business
Insider articles for more “fun facts” about the two camps gleaned from
Battery’s research, and especially take in some of the reader comments, and how
strong some peoples’ reactions are to this perceived “stereotyping” that really
isn’t that at all, but still seems to raise both ire and suspicion.

A now-classic example of similar segmentation involved
Windows and Macintosh web surfers. An August 2012 Wall Street Journal story disclosed
that the travel site Orbitz, based on user research, was offering Mac-based web
browsers higher rates as compared to Windows users. (See “On
Orbitz, Mac Users Steered to Pricier Hotels.”)

As the mobile/smartphone market has developed
over the last several years, there have been a long string of stories about “iPhone
versus Android” quantification that includes, for example, how many apps are
used by platform, the amount of web browsing for which each is responsible, the
volume of ecommerce by each, etc. In every case, the numbers tilt Apple’s way.
At the same time, the market figures show iOS losing the market-share war, more
so every reporting period, leaving app developers and others to debate which
platform to support first – the one with the installed base numbers in its
favor (Android) or the one with the more active, involved users (iPhone). One major
app developer, Microsoft, recently made what seems the logical decision,
porting the long-awaited mobile Office apps to iPhone in March and with Android
support TBD. (For example, see "Why did Microsoft port Office to Apple's iOS iPad before Android?")

At a recent HP Industry Analyst event, I had a
conversation about mobile printing and its users with none other than Dion
Weisler, senior vice president and head of HP’s PC and Printer Organization. He
indicated, without spilling all the beans, that a large difference existed in
printing behavior when it came to the two platforms. In thinking about this
more, and then following up with others, it made sense more printing would come
from the more active iPhone users.

The data HP was willing to disclose, both during
their Analyst event in March and also via follow-up recently, add some credence to this idea. Their analyst-briefing slides included quite a bevy
of numbers including an overall 66 percent of smartphone users interested in
being able to print from their devices, with mobile printing capability
cracking the "top five" of printer selection criteria. Among their Instant Ink
printing users (see last month’s post on “The Internet of Things”, "Printers as things? Do printers fit as part of the Internet-of-things?"), 30 percent of
their devices have received at least one print job from an iOS device. And when
I pressed on iOS/Android splits, and keeping in mind the company is
understandably close to the vest with much of its market data, a spokesperson
did confirm that “iOS dominates mobile print jobs, but Android is on the rise.”

These data are just a start, and between numbers
provided by HP and other vendors, and those available on the websites of such printing-oriented
pages as those from Apple and Mopria, a regular "Harper’s Index" could be
generated. And speaking of that, stay tuned for June’s Observations!